Regional differentiation of living standards in the RSFSR: The issue of inequality

Abstract

IN the Soviet Union there is considerable regional variation in most social welfare indicators. Housing space per capita, hospital beds per capita and retail trade turnover per capita, all, for example, differ widely from region to region. From relevant literature on Soviet welfare policies two hypotheses concerning regional differences in policy results can be gleaned. These hypotheses can be labelled as follows: 1) level of development and 2) equalization. According to the level-of-development hypothesis, the higher the level of economic development the higher the level of social services and benefits. While this hypothesis is rooted in analyses of the Stalin era, it is also frequently advanced as an explanation of policy patterns for the Khrushchev and Brezhnev-Kosygin periods. Stalin's goals involved rapid industrialization, the conversion of a backward, agrarian Russia into an industrial giant. Fainsod has asserted that the industrialization drive, beginning with the onset of the five-year plans in 1929, led to the repudiation of mass welfare and egalitarianism.' Welfare became not only a secondary consideration, but was also utilitarian in nature, serving primarily as a means of reinforcing industrialization.2 The level-of-development hypothesis thus holds that a maldistribution of funds and services in the welfare realm stems from the party elite's constant resolve to place a rapidly growing industrial output before all else. But have such concerns and policy patterns been perpetuated in the post-Stalin era? Osborn has argued that welfare policy is still geared towards the reinforcement of investment in industry. 3 Hence he regards a growing industrial base as the key explanatory variable accounting for the availability of investment funds for housing and for the improvement of living conditions in general. In a similar vein Mickiewicz has asserted that the Soviet pattern of development continues to favour the city, with 'life in the country . .. becoming qualitatively inferior to that of the cities'.4 The prominent Soviet dissident, Andrei Sakharov, has spoken of the distribution issue as follows: 'There is inequality among regions: Moscow and the larger cities are favoured in the distribution of products, living comforts, cultural services, and so on.'5